Editing Erasmus (section)

====Classical====
Erasmus syncretistically took phrases, ideas and motifs from many classical philosophers to furnish discussions of Christian themes:{{refn|group=note|According to historian Jamie Gianoutsos, Erasmus was not cherry-picking, in the way of St Augustine's 'spoiling the Egyptians', i.e., acquiring what is valuable from the pagan heritage for the benefit of Christianity. "Erasmus, in contrast, had expressed reserve and even cautious criticism for Augustine's views while betraying great enthusiasm for St Jerome and his metaphor of the freeman who marries the captive slave to obtain her freedom. Christianity [...] had wed itself to the classical heritage to enhance and liberate it (i.e., that heritage) from its pagan ethos".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gianoutsos |first1=Jamie A. |title=Sapientia and Stultitia in John Colet's Commentary on First Corinthians |journal=Reformation & Renaissance Review |date=4 May 2019 |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=109–125 |doi=10.1080/14622459.2019.1612979|s2cid=182939353 }}</ref>}} academics have identified aspects of his thought as variously [[Platonist]] (duality),<ref group=note>{{cite book |quote=Erasmus does not engage with Plato as a philosopher, at least not in any rigorous sense, but rather as a rhetorician of spiritual experience, the instigator of a metaphorical system which coheres effectively with Pauline Christianity.|first= Dominic |last=Baker-Smith|title=Platonism and the English Imagination |chapter= Uses of Plato by Erasmus and More  |date=1994 |pages=86–99 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511553806.010  |isbn=978-0-521-40308-5 |quote-page=92}}</ref> [[Cynicism (philosophy)|Cynical]] ([[asceticism]]),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Laursen |first1=J. C. |title=Erasmus and Christian Cynicism as Cultural Context for Toleration |journal=Theological Foundations of Modern Constitutional Theory|publisher= Nantes Institute for Advanced Study |date=2016 |url=https://www.iea-nantes.fr/rtefiles/File/Ateliers/2016%20Hong/erasmus-and-christian-cynicism-j-c-laursen.pdf |access-date=8 August 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=dogs>{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Hugh |title=Dogs' Tales: Representations of Ancient Cynicism in French Renaissance Texts |journal=Faux Titre Online| volume= 279|date=1 January 2006 |doi=10.1163/9789401202985_006|s2cid=243905013 }}</ref> [[Stoicism|Stoic]] ([[adiaphora]]),<ref name=dealy>{{cite book |last1=Dealy |first1=Ross |title=The Stoic Origins of Erasmus' Philosophy of Christ |date=2017 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |jstor=10.3138/j.ctt1kgqwzz |isbn=978-1-4875-0061-0}}</ref> [[Epicurean]] ([[ataraxia]],<ref group=note>"Despite a lack of formal philosophical training and an antipathy to medieval [[scholasticism]], Erasmus possessed not only a certain familiarity with [[Thomas Aquinas]], but also close knowledge of [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]]. Erasmus' interest in some Platonic motifs is well known. But the most consistent philosophical theme in Erasmus' writings from his earliest to his latest was that of the [[Epicurean]] goal of peace of mind, ''[[ataraxia]]''. Erasmus, in fact, combined Christianity with a nuanced Epicurean morality. This Epicureanism, when combined in turn with a commitment to the {{lang|la|[[Sensus fidelium#Use by the magisterium|consensus Ecclesiae]]}} as well as with an allergy to dogmatic formulations and an appreciation of the [[Greek Fathers]], ultimately rendered Erasmus alien to [[Martin Luther|Luther]] and [[Protestantism]] though they agreed on much." Abstract of {{cite journal |last1=Monfasani |first1=John |title=Twenty-fifth Annual Margaret Mann Phillips Lecture: Erasmus and the Philosophers |journal=Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook |date=2012 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=47–68 |doi=10.1163/18749275-00000005}}</ref>  pleasure as virtue),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Leushuis |first1=Reinier |title=The Paradox of Christian Epicureanism in Dialogue: Erasmus' Colloquy The Epicurean |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=2015 |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=113–136 |doi=10.1163/18749275-03502003}}</ref> realist/non-voluntarist,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2010/12/a-much-neglected-basic-choice-in-theology/|title=A Much Neglected Basic Choice in Theology|first=Roger E.|last=Olson|date=26 December 2010|access-date=2 December 2023|archive-date=19 January 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240119154826/https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2010/12/a-much-neglected-basic-choice-in-theology/|url-status=live}}</ref>
and [[Isocrates|Isocratic]] (rhetoric, political education, syncretism).<ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Innerd |first1=W. L. |title=The contribution of Isocrates to Western educational thought |date=1969 |publisher=Durham University |url=http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9599/ |type=Masters |access-date=21 December 2023 |archive-date=13 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413053157/http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9599/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|19}} However, his Christianized version of [[Epicureanism]] is regarded as his own.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Linkels |first1=Nicole |title=Philosophy and Religion in service of the Philosophia Christi |journal=Erasmus Student Journal of Philosophy |date=2013 |issue=5 |page=48 |url=https://www.eur.nl/sites/corporate/files/ESJP.5.2013.04.Linkels.pdf |access-date=19 July 2023}}</ref>

Erasmus was sympathetic to a kind of epistemological ([[Ciceronian]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Thorsrud |first1=Harald |title=Cicero: Academic Skepticism |url=https://iep.utm.edu/cicero-academic-skepticism/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=21 April 2024 |archive-date=13 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240313225043/https://iep.utm.edu/cicero-academic-skepticism/ |url-status=live }}</ref> not [[Cartesian doubt|Cartesian]])<ref name=boyle/>{{rp|50}} [[Pyrrhonism|Scepticism]]:{{refn|group=note|Historian Fritz Caspari quipped that [[Machiavelli]] "appears as a sceptic whose premise is the badness of man", while Erasmus is a sceptic whose general premise is "man is or can be made good".<ref name=caspari>{{cite journal |last1=Caspari |first1=Fritz |title=Erasmus on the Social Functions of Christian Humanism |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |date=1947 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=78–106 |doi=10.2307/2707442 |jstor=2707442  |issn=0022-5037}}</ref> }}

{{Blockquote|A Sceptic is not someone who doesn't care to know what is true or false&nbsp;... but rather someone who does not make a final decision easily or fight to the death for his own opinion, but rather accepts as probable what someone else accepts as certain&nbsp;... I explicitly exclude from Scepticism whatever is set forth in Sacred Scripture or whatever has been handed down to us by the authority of the Church. |source= Erasmus<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rummel |first1=Erika |last2=MacPhail |first2=Eric |title=Desiderius Erasmus |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/erasmus/#Meth |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2021 |access-date=25 August 2023 |archive-date=11 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211081603/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/erasmus/#Meth |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Historian Kirk Essary has noted that from his earliest to last works Erasmus "regularly denounced the Stoics as specifically unchristian in their hardline position and advocacy of {{lang|la|apatheia}}": warm affection and an appropriately fiery heart being inalienable parts of human sincerity;<ref name=fiery>{{cite journal |last1=Essary |first1=Kirk |title=Fiery Heart and Fiery Tongue: Emotion in Erasmus' Ecclesiastes |journal=Erasmus Studies |date=2016 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=5–34 |doi=10.1163/18749275-03601014}}</ref>{{rp|17}} however, historian Ross Dealy sees Erasmus' decrial of other non-gentle "perverse affections" as having Stoical roots.<ref name=dealy/>

Erasmus wrote in terms of a tri-partite nature of man, with the soul the seat of free will:

{{Blockquote|The body is purely material; the spirit is purely divine; the soul&nbsp;... is tossed back and forwards between the two according to whether it resists or gives way to the temptations of the flesh. The spirit makes us gods; the body makes us beasts; the soul makes us men.|Erasmus<ref name=laytam/>
}}

According to theologian [[George van Kooten]], Erasmus was the first modern scholar "to note the similarities between Plato's ''Symposium'' and John's Gospel", first in the ''Enchiridion'' then in the ''Adagia'', pre-dating other scholarly interest by 400 years.<ref name="vanKooten">{{cite web |last1=van Kooten |first1=George |title=Three Symposia |url=https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/inaugural-lecture-george-van-kooten-three-symposia.pdf |website=Faculty of Divinity |publisher=University of Cambridge |access-date=5 August 2023 |archive-date=11 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230811151428/https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/inaugural-lecture-george-van-kooten-three-symposia.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref>{{cite book |contributor-first=Harold W. |contributor-last=Attridge |contribution=Plato, Plutarch, and John: Three Symposia about Love |last1=Townsend |first1=Philippa |last2=Denzey Lewis |first2=Nicola |last3=Jenott |first3=Lance |last4=Iricinschi |first4=Eduard |title=Beyond the Gnostic Gospels: Studies Building on the Work of Elaine Pagels |series=Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity |volume=82 |date=2013 |publisher=Mohr Siebec |location=Tübingen}}</ref>